most effectively deal with president clinton -- putin? if we are going to be effective, we need to take as much as we can out of the public arena and deal privately with these issues. when it has become a contest between our presidents, who can do what to the other, it becomes, i think, very emotional , and tends to push things in the wrong direction. so i would hope, having done some of the sanctions that we promised, when we promised them, we have to do them. try, to the maximum, to go private. in particular, i think where we can be most helpful is convincing the authorities in kiev to come to any reasonable terms that the russians are asking. publicly at least they are asking for a federal constitution. they are asking for equal treatment of the russian and ukrainian languages and asking for a pledge of neutrality. i think all of those three demands on the surface are reasonable. quietly to me working with the ukrainians in kiev and the europeans is going to be more helpful than the sanctions. ambassador, what could the obama administr